Being a fan of the horror genre can be frustrating--living in a world filled with bad Hollywood remakes of great classics and series more focused on torture and gore then actually scaring anyone. So, when I picked up Ghost Road Blues, by Jonathan Maberry, I hoped it would give me that old school horror fix I’d been craving since my childhood and young adulthood spent watching the horror films of the seventies and eighties, and let’s just say I was not disappointed.

Ghost Road Blues is a story that takes place in the small town of Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, which just so happens to have the biggest Halloween celebration in the country. However, things weren’t always this commercial and light in the town which also happens to have a dark past, a serial murderer who ravaged the town before getting brought to justice, in a six-feet-under kind of way. As the festivities roll in for this year’s Halloween, their past is coming back to haunt them, and not all the monsters walking around town are working at the haunted hayride. Now, the citizens of Pine Deep have to work together to stop those trying to resurrect an ancient evil who will finish what he started thirty years ago.

Kenneth Oppel introduces us to young Victor Frankenstein in his new book, This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein. Victor is sixteen years old and very curious about alchemy. He lives with his twin brother Konrad and his cousin Elizabeth. They are victims of typical teen curiosity and idle times. As they explore their extensive chateau in Geneva, they discover the previously unknown Dark Library. Clearly, this is a forbidden area to explore. They discover books about alchemy and ancient remedies. Their foray into the off-limits room is discovered by Victor and Konrad's father. He is incensed and instructs them to never go into the room again and to certainly never explore the writings.